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Weekly Update
December 15, 2003
It’s time once again to report on my weekly goals. This more frequent check in plan seemed like such a good idea two weeks ago when I started it. Now, it seems like a crazy thing to do in a month that has holiday hoopla and a vacation added to the normal everyday stuff. Yet I hate to just throw up my hands and say I can’t do it now, because really, when will it be better? Something’s always coming up; I can always find some excuse to not get started. This time I’m not letting myself off the hook. I probably will fall short of my goals, but even if I do I’ll end up getting more done than if I just gave up. It’s like putting off dieting until tomorrow or next week or after the party; I’ve tried that approach and it doesn’t work. Baby steps; gotta keep taking baby steps in the direction I want to go.
Okay, pep talk over, let’s get to the truth about this last week. It didn’t go that well. I tried to squeeze a full week’s work into the three days I was in the office and had to prepare for the ski trip on top of that, so I didn’t get as much done as I wanted. I completely forgot to vote for the Diarist Awards, for instance, even though I’d printed out the pages with the finalists and started reading them and making notes about which ones I liked. I didn’t even do a bang up job getting ready for the trip, doing things like dropping Bubba off at Erica’s without his food dish. Bleah. I hate it when I get frazzled like that.
I said I’d keep writing down everything I eat and stay under my points limit at least two days. I did the latter but not the former. I carried my WW journal around the entire week, but stopped writing things down after Friday breakfast (two blueberry waffles with margarine and syrup, two slices processed cheese food product). Vacations have always been a hard time for me to control my food intake and this trip was no exception. I don’t want to diet when I’m off having fun, not even a little bit. This wouldn’t be such a problem if I didn’t take so many trips, but I don’t plan to stop traveling so I need to come up with a new approach at some point. Not this week, though. This week I’ll be home, and I plan to write down everything I eat and stick to my points limit at least three days.
I promised to finish Traveling Ladies and start on the book club book for this month. I didn’t finish Traveling Ladies because I didn’t have enough left to justify taking it along on the trip and then when we got home last night I forgot all about it and instead read a Fortune article about how my job is going to move to India so I’d better watch out. I did, however, not only start but finish the book club book, so I’m giving myself a passing grade in this area. This week I will finish Traveling Ladies and pick out a new book to read next.
I wanted to make progress on the baby quilt at least temporarily known as the rail fence quilt. I did. Not much progress, but something is better than nothing. I cut all the squares of the focus fabric and got them up on the wall and decided on the first group of four prints for the pieced blocks. I would love to finish this quilt this weekend, but that’s probably too much of a stretch; I will at least make enough pieced blocks to fill in the blank spaces on the design wall.
I said I’d keep working those cards, baby. Well, I did, except for the days I was gone, which don’t count, and the day before we left, which does, so I can’t really say I kept this promise to myself. I was too busy getting Bubba situated and finishing my packing. On the plus side, when we’re not home we’re not able to mess up the house, so I didn’t lose that much ground in the household area. This week, I’ll do the tasks on the daily and weekly cards, unpack (including the remaining pile of stuff I never got put away from the Japan trip), and start on December’s box of clippings. Sending out the Christmas cards doesn’t really fall under any of my annual goals, but I have to do that, too, so I think I’ve got plenty of stuff on my list.
So let’s see. Fail, pass, pass, fail, and no extra credit. Not the kind of performance I like to see or the kind that will lead to a successful month as far as my goals go, but it’s a new week now and a new opportunity to do better.
A year ago, I was nattering on about the Purple Systems unofficial Christmas party. It looks like I’ll be able to go to the official one this year unless something unexpected happens between now and Friday. That reminds me that I need to come up with a dish to pass, so I’ll have to add that to the list of things to do this week.
